IN ENGLISHAnother lichen dyeing experiment this week, lichens collected from felled trees and also some were windblown. Evernia prunastri is very similar to the lichen I used last week, Pseudevernia furfuracea, but this lichen has also white underside, the same colour as the upper part, and it is a very soft lichen. When dried it didn't weight much. It grows here in my garden on apple trees and also on oaks and rowans. Evernia prunastri is the orchil type of lichen which could give purples after fermenting with ammonia, but from all I have read those purples are not lightfast colour, so I don't dye them.With normal boiling water method also this lichen gives fast yellows without any mordant. Evernia prunastri contains usnic acid, evernic acid and atranorin.

Kuivattuja jäkäliä oli painona tosi vähän, vain 10g. Hauduttelin niitä kahtenä päivänä ja sen jälkeen lisäsin jäkälien kanssa liemeen 20g purettamatonta lankaa. Lankaa tuli suhteessa jäkäliin aika paljon, ja ensimmäisen päivän värjäyksen jälkeen lanka oli vaalea, mutta melko kirkas keltainen. Annoin langan olla liemessä yön yli ja haudutin toisena päivänä myös useamman tunnin, jolloin väri tummeni, mutta myös sameni ja lopullinen väri oli voimakas mutta samea kellanruskea, missä ei ole sitä viherrystä mitä harmaahankakarveella värjätyssä langassa oli. Jäkälienkin värit ovat aika yllätyksellisiä, koska Casselmanin mukaan tästä olisi pitänyt saada vaaleaa oranssia, ja Grierson taas oli saanut siitä vaalean oranssin lisäksi kullankeltaista ja vaaleaa punertavan oranssia, kaikki eri värjäyskerroilla, ja minun värjäyksessäni taas ei ole oranssia tai punertavaa ollenkaan.IN ENGLISHDry lichen was very light weight, only 10 grams. I simmered them in two days in a row, and after that added 20g of yarn to the bath with lichens and simmered them in two days in a row. There was quite a lot of yarn compared to the weight of the lichens and after the first day the yarn was pale clear yellow. After simmering it for several hours in the second day it became darker but also duller, and the final colour is dark but dull brownish yellow, with no greenish shade like what I got from Pseudevernia furfuracea. Colours from lichens can be surprising, according to Casselman this lichen should have given light orange. Grierson had gotten from it light orange, golden yellow and Pompeian yellow, all different colours from different dyelots from the same lichen species. I didn't get any orange shade from this lichens now.

IN ENGLISHThis week I dyed with lichen Pseudevernia furfuracea which I had collected earlier in the winter. The are quite common here and often when it had been windy you can find them in the ground. The underside of these lichens is dark while the similar lichen Evernia prunastri has white undersides.I had 50 grams of dried lichens. I simmered them two days in a row, and after that added unmordanted yarn and simmered again in two days in a row. I used half as much yarn by weight as lichens, but later thought that I could have dyed more yarn with that bath. The colour became quite strong greenish yellow, similar shade than what I got with lichen Platismatia glauca, so these two lichens could be used together. Su Grierson says in her book that she got vivid orange from this lichen. My colour is very different, perhaps growing conditions or time of year may affect the colour.

IN ENGLISHI have more lichens waiting for dyeing, but last week I dyed again with the bath from bilberry stems which I had made in January. I had wondered about the reddish colour I got then, and because the bath was still red, I had saved it. I had added some wood ash lye to it to raise the pH to 9. During the past month pH had dropped to 6.I dyed 100 grams of yarn mordanted with alum and CoT, and it started to take on colour as soon as the temperature was raised. After one hour it was reddish brown, I can't understand that colour. That is, I can't understand what dyes there are in bilberry stems which can dye a colour like that? Could they be anthocyanins even though the colour of the stems is green? Tannins are possible, though I have never gotten this dark colour from tannins.Exhaust bath gave a paler reddish colour, similar than the original colour in January but a bit paler. Before using these yarns I have to test their light fastness in the summer when there is more sun!

IN ENGLISHThere are very very few mentions of using juniper (Juniperus communis) for dyeng in Finnish dye litterature. Hellen (1919) gives two recipes where juniper needles give grey with iron and green with copper, and about berries there is only one mention that they give green with copper. To compare with there are 22 recipes to dye with marsh tea in the same book. Later in 1977 in Hassi's dye book she says that with iron it gives grey and with copper olive brown, much the same thing that Hellen has written.However in English dye litterature Grierson (The Colour Cauldron, 1986) gives a recipe with alum which gives curry yellow or yolk yellow, which are quite strong yellows. Juniper bark can give reddish brown. Also in many books written by Jenny Dean she has recipes to dye yellow with juniper berries and leafy shoots I also found a mention in Franco Brunello: The Art of Dyeing in the History of Mankind (1973), look page 166, which says that in Northern Europe juniper berries were used to as a source of yellow to dye green with woad in Roman times.I decided to try to dye with juniper. Jenny Dean (A Heritage of Colour) says that both needles/leafy shoots and green berries give similar colours and can be used together. Juniper berries are not really berries but berrylike fleshy cones. First I was going to dye with only berries, but they were sitting so tight in the branches, that in the end I used small leafy shoots with needles and berries in them

IN ENGLISHI had 650 grams of leafy shoots with berries. I boiled them first two hours and then let cool overnight. Bath looked clear yellow but not very strong, so I simmered it for one more hour the next day and let cool overnight again. Now it was quite dark reddish brown and I thought that I had spoiled it, because both Grierson and Jenny Dean warn about keeping an eye on the yarn when dyeing as the colour may become duller (though I didn't have yarn in the bath at this time yet). Jenny also says to crush the berries, but I didn't do it.I strained off the bath and dyed then 200 grams of yarn mordanted with alum and CoT, and got quite pretty yellow, much better than I expected. After bath gave much paler beige. In the picture below the pale skein on the left is no mordant and the darker on the right is iron mordant. Because I had no idea what dyes there are in juniper I googled and found this page which also says what flavonoids juniper contains. I presume the yellow came from flavonoids.

IN ENGLISHWhen I collected lichens earlier from fallen rowan tree, I separated Platismatia glauca from Hypogymnia lichens, and dried them. I dyed with them this week.There were 30 grams of very dry lichens, and as previously, I boiled them in several days, and then added yarn (no mordant) and simmered in two days in a row, yarn together with the lichens.Because lichens were so dry I dyed the same amount of yarn than the weight of the lichens.Colour became lighter and more lemon yellow than what I got from Hypogymnia lichens.

IN ENGLISHBehind our house we have lots of birches, and every winter we cut some down to dry for firewood. There are lots of lichens, mostly Hypogymnia physoides, in the birches. Their trunks look more grey than white because of the lichens. If the weather is above freezing when we cut down them, it is easy to collect the lichens, but when it is cold, it is more difficult. I never collect all of them, and small branches are cut to pieces and used as mulch in the garden and so lichens in them can continue their life cycle.The dyeing this week was with Hypogymnia physoides lichens which had grown in birches, just to test if they give the same colour as the ones which grew on rowan. Yes, they gave the same colour:)

Oma tapani värjätä on näiden välimuoto eli ensin haudutan jäkäliä (samassa liemessä) useana päivänä peräkkäin ja minusta liemi tummenee joka päivä hiukan lisää. Sitten lisään langat liemeen ja hauduttelen niitä yhdessä jäkälien kanssa myös ainakin parina peräkkäisenä päivänä. Näin väristä tulee voimakkaampi, kuin jos värjäisi vain tunnin. Puretusta sormipaisukarvejäkälien kanssa ei tarvita, vaan väri kiinnittyy pysyvästi ilman muuta puretusta.IN ENGLISHKaren Diadick Kasselman in her book Lichen Dyes, The New Source Book (2001) writes that with boiling water method you can have three different ways to do it. First shred the lichens and soak them 24-48 hours and then1. Put the yarns in the bath together with lichens in layers, and simmer until you have the desired color, several days or even weeks. This is a traditional way from Scotland and Ireland, and was also used in Nordic countries.2. Boil the lichens, strain and dye.3. Triple extraction: boil the lichens 30 minutes, then simmer one more hour and strain off the bath, and save it in a bucket. Pour new fresh water over the lichens, boil, simmer and strain off the second time, and repeat the process third time. Combine the three baths, add yarn and simmer for 2-4 hours, then cool overnight.My way is something between one and three, but I should try if no 3 works better than how I have done it. Anyway, I simmer the lichens in the same bath in three days in a row, I can see how the bath gets darker each day. Then I add the yarn and again simmer at least in two days in a row. Dyeing the yarn in two days I get darker colour than if I dye it only for one hour. There is no need for mordant when dyeing with lichens.

Koivulta kerättyjä sormipaisukarpeita oli 790g eli yli puolet enemmän kuin viime viikolla tekemässäni värjäyksessä. Laitoin kuitenkin vain 100g lankaa liemeen ja ajattelin saavani tummempaa, ehkä ruskeampaa, mutta väristä tuli melko lailla samanlainen kuin pienemmällä määrällä jäkäliä, vain ehkä hitusen syvempi. Sain kuitenkin vielä 300g jälkivärejä, joista viimeiset ovat edelleen kattilassa, ja kaikista tuli aika hyvä keltainen. Eli 2-3 kertaa jäkäliä suhteessa langan painoon riittää, ja siitäkin saa jälkiväriä. Mitä vähemmän on jäkäliä, sitä pidempään lankoja kannattaa värjätä siellä liemessä. Casselman suosittelee jäkälävärjätyille langoille sitä, että niiden annetaan kuivua ja värin tekeytyä vielä jonkin aikaa värjäyksen jälkeen ennenkuin langat pestään, termi englanniksi on "delayed rinsing". Itse olen pessyt langat saman tien eikä väriä ole juuri lähtenyt, mutta neuvo voi olla joka tapauksessa hyvä:).IN ENGLISHI had 790 grams of Hypogymnia lichens, that was more than twice as much as I used last week for 100g of yarn, yet I dyed also now first 100 grams thinking that maybe I would get darker, more brown or bronze colour, but that didn't happen. The colour I got is very similar than I got last week, only a bit deeper. Besides the first colour, I could dye three more skeins in that same bath, the last ones are still in it, and all seem to be good yellows. So, 2-3 times the weight of the fiber is good, and it also gives after baths. The less you have lichens, the longer it is good to keep the yarns in the bath, I think. Casselman recommends delayed rinsing to lichen dyed fibers, but I have rinsed straight away, and there was very little loose colour, but anyway it is a good advise:).

IN ENGLISHEarlier in January some trees had fallen down in a storm. We cut the fallen trees to use as firewood and I noticed that one fallen rowan trees was full of lichens. Picture above is from four weeks ago when we didn't have any snow, now there is about 40cm snow. There were many kinds of lichens but most of them were Hypogymnia physoides and other Hypogymnia species, a very common lichen here in Finland. I think they are called Puffed shield lichen in English. I scraped the lichens to use for dyeing before the tree was cut to pieces and put to dry for later use. Although lichens are very old source of dye, it is not advisable to collect them for dyeing, they are very slow to grow. However, these trees were going to be used to heat our house and lichens would be destroyed anyway. I also sometimes collect wind blown lichens, though yellow is a colour which I can easily get from many plants in the summer.

IN ENGLISHI had 275 grams of lichens, weight was after they were a bit dry. I boiled them in three days in a row, and after that added the yarns (90 grams) to the bath where they were mixed with the lichens. I simmered the bath with yarns and lichens in two days, temperature was almost boiling (by accident) once, but mostly simmer or under it. At first it always looks like the yarns are a mess with lichens, but when the yarns were dry, it was easy to shake them and get the lichens off from them.Lichens contain acids (physodic and physodalic acids and atranorin) which act as a mordant so you wouldn't need any metallic mordant when dyeing with them. In the picture below you can see how the yarn with no mordant is actually darker in colour than the one with alum and cream of tartar. Iron premordant gave greenish shade to the yarn.

IN ENGLISHWe have several large firs growing in our land. Some old trees are siberian firs and younger ones either balsam firs (Abies balsamea) or hybrids of balsam fir and siberian fir, planted here by the previous owner of our place maybe 30 years ago. One of the younger trees has branches growing too close to the path, so I thought to cut them and try if they give the same colour as our native Norway spruce did. These were nice to collect, the needles were soft and not so pricky as needles of Norway spruce.

IN ENGLISHI simmered needles for one hour and then let the bath cool overnight. The bath was very different colour than what I expected, nice reddish brown but pale colour. Because it didn't look very strong, I used more plant material/ yarn than I normally do, 2kg of fir needles to 100g of yarn. The bigger skein was mordanted with alum and CoT and smaller one with iron. Yellow was very nice and quite strong colour, much stronger than what I got from Norway spruce. Though I did use now more firs so it could be a factor, but even the bath looked different. Norway spruce bath was darker and yet the colour to the yarn was paler.If we sometime need to cut down one of these firs, I think I would use all its needles to dye with.

IN ENGLISHUntil a few days ago we had hardly any snow at all, but now it has snowed in couple of days and there are maybe 10cm snow in the ground. In other parts of Finland there is much more snow. Picture above was taken a week ago, when I collected some green bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) stems to try for dyeing. In the dye litterature there are only mentions of berries for dyeing, but they contain anthocyanin type of dyes which are not lightfast. I thought the stems might give me some kind of yellow. I was quite surprised of the colour I got!

IN ENGLISHI had 800g of stems to 100g of yarn. I simmered stems for two hours and let cool overnight. Because our water is acidic, I added a tablespoonful of washing soda to raise pH a little, and I when I dyed the yarn, pH of the bath was neutral, pH 7. The bath was dark reddish brown, and yarn mordanted with alum and CoT became pinkish brown. It looked pinker when it was wet, but when it dried it became more brownish. The lighter of the small skeins has no mordant, and the darker one was premordanted with iron. I was surprised to see that even without mordant some colour attached to the yarn. As always with this kind of experiments, I can't say how fast these colours are before testing them.

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Tämän viikon värjäyksestä tulikin iloinen yllätys.
Minulla kasvaa puutarhassa kotkansiipeä (Matteuccia struthiopteris), joka on kyllä luonnonkasvi, mutta olen istuttanut sitä varjopenkin reunaan, sehän on niin komea saniainen. Kotkansiipi tekee kesällä isot lehdet, jotka lakastuvat syksyllä, mutta sitten itiöpesäkkeitä varten se tekee syksyllä erilaiset talveksi törröttämään jäävät itiölehdet, joista itiöt sitten keväällä leviävät.
Keräsin noita kovia itiöpesäkelehtiä, kuvassa yllä, ja kokeilin niillä värjäystä. Kuvassa näkyvät lakastuneina kesäiset varsinaiset lehdet ja itiölehdet pystyssä. Mistään kirjasta en löytänyt tietoa, että näillä olisi värjätty, vaikka muiden saniaisten, kuten sananjalan tai kampasaniaisen lehdillä voi värjätä kesällä kellanvihreää.IN ENGLISHThis week's plant gave me a nice surprise.Ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) grows in wild here in Finland, but I have planted it also in the garden. It is such a good and big plant for shade. Summer leaves are big and they die in the autumn, you can see the remnants of them in the picture above. The brown hard leaves still up are the fertile fronds which develop in the autumn and release the spores in the next spring.As you can see, the snow from the autumn had melted away and right now there is hardly any snow, but the ground is frozen.I collected those fertile fronds, and dyed with them. I couldn't find any information in dye books that they could be used for dyeing. Green summer leaves of other ferns can be used for greenish yellow in early summer.

IN ENGLISHI simmered fronds for about two hours, and let the bath cool until next morning. At first it looked like they would not release any colour, but in the end the bath was nice reddish brown. very promising.

IN ENGLISHI had 350g fertile fronds and I put 35g of alum-cot mordanted yarn in the strained bath. Only after the temperature of the bath was close to simmering, the yarn started to take colour, and after simmering for an hour I let it cool in the bath overnight. In the morning the result was very nice and surprisingly strong peachy yellow! The darker little skein was premordanted with iron, and the pale small skein was unmordanted, so without mordant colour from this plant would not attach hardly at all. After bath gave quite pale colour to yarn even though the bath itself still looked dark, so only the first bath was worth dyeing.

IN ENGLISHThe first week of January I collected some Norway spruce branchlets and needles for dyeing. Norway spruce (Picea abies) is one of the most common trees in Finland, and also older Finnish dyebooks say it can be used for dyeing, giving greenish yellow. I have dyed with it earlier, too, and always gotten the same colour I got now. I don't know if time of year might make a difference and the new shoots would give more greenish yellow. Another project would be to try the same plant material different times of year.

IN ENGLISHI used one kilo of spruce branches to 100g of yarn, boiled the branches for two hours and let them cool in the bath overnight. The yarn mordanted with alum and cream of tartar was dyed the next day. Small greenish grey sample was premordanted with iron, 1,5% iron. I think it turned out even nicer than the beige/yellow bigger skein.

IN ENGLISHSomeone may think that because I sell my yarns, I have a small factory here, but no, in reality my dyeing is quite primitive, I am a craft dyer. Most of the dyeing I do outside during spring, summer and autumn months.My old wood burning big pot is not so good any more and needs repairing, but last summer I got a brand new big wood burning pot, and it is so good!

VIIKKOPROJEKTI 2018
Tänä vuonna yritän tehdä joka viikko yhden pienen värjäyksen jollain omalta tontilta saadulla luonnonvaraisella kasvilla. Talvikuukaudet voivat olla vaikeita, saa nähdä keksinkö värin lähteitä koko talveksi vai käytänkö myös jotain kuivattuja kasveja, saa nähdä. Tästä voi kuitenkin tulla ihan mielenkiintoista. Varoituksena täytyy mainita, että todennäköisesti suurin osa oman tontin kasveista antaa jonkin sortin keltaista:)IN ENGLISHI have written many times how I mostly dye with indigo, madder or cochineal, and some yellow with weld or Genista tinctoria, because they are the most fast dyes and also because I need them for my kits. And also some dyeings with mushrooms Tapinella ja Cortinarius. In past few years I haven't had any time for experiments, which I like most, but couple of weeks ago I started thinking that I want to do something even a little bit different next year. Though at the market most people buy blue and red yarns, but sometimes there are customers who ask for something dyed with Finnish native plants.We have quite a lot of our own land around the house, about four hectares, and there are a lot of plants which I could use for dyeing. I counted that there are 16 different native tree species growing in our land, plus all the trees, bushes and other plants which I have planted in the garden. There are a lot of different herbaceous native plants because there are different habitats from forest to field and meadow by the lake. Many plants I can collect only small amounts, which is enough to dye a sample.Sometimes I have also felt pressure (mainly from my own thoughts!), that I should do everything very thorough and have every possible variation of colour from each plant before I write here. Now I decided to give myself a break also in that respect, and the dyeings I do now this year are only samples to give inspiration to myself and others, though you may not have the same plants growing near you.WEEK PROJECT 2018This year I will try to do one little dyeing each week with a native plant I can find in our own land. I hope I can find enough to dye with during winter months, or if I have to use some dried plants. Summer and autumn are easy, or at least I think so. This will be interesting, though I have to warn you that most colours will be some kind of yellow:)

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WHY USE NATURAL DYES

"We can keep the knowledge of their use alive, as well as regaining for ourselves a vital contact with the natural world. The ability to correctly identify the plants needed, to understand their growth stages sufficiently well to be able to obtain the greatest dye, offer both challenge and pleasure."

We sell our yarns, mitten kits, knitted things and my husband's photographs at the market Kauppatori in Helsinki. From mid September until mid May my husband will be at the market only on Saturdays if the weather is good. Occasionally also some other days.

Week Project 2018 Viikkoprojekti 2018

This year each week I will try to do one little dyeing with some native plant growing in our own land.